Threads: The Missing String
by whisper99
Summary: Did you wonder what Sam was going to tell Jack before she was interupted?rnDid you wonder what Kerry meant by the 'One big issue' she couldn't 'love' with?


**NOTE**: _This is my take on stuff that happened that we didn't get to see in the episode THREADS, for various reasons. This is completely unbeta'd…all mistakes are mine. Alas, the characters belong to lots of other people. I'm only borrowing them for a while._

**SAM AND JACK**

In the back garden, Jack is busily burning some steaks on the barbecue on his porch. He pours some beer out of his bottle over onto the charred steaks. Sam comes around the side of the house.

Sam calls out, a little nervously, "Hi, sir."

Jack looks up, surprised, "Carter!"

Sam says, "Look, I-I'm sorry to bother you at home like this, but, uh ..."

Jack asks, "How'd you know I was here?" Glancing nervously towards the house for a moment.

Sam looks towards the house, then back at him, gesturing, "I saw the smoke."

Jack brushes ashes off his shirt, saying, "Oh, yeah."

Sam shifts her feet a bit, asking, "Look, is this, is this OK? I mean, I could have called first, but ..."

Jack shakes his head, glancing towards the house again, answering, "No ... yeah ... I mean, it's fine. So, um, what brings you to this neck of the woods on such a fine day in my back yard?"

Sam blinks, looking up at him as she says, "Well, actually, I've, um," she clears her throat again a bit nervously, "I've been sitting in your driveway for the last ten minutes trying to work up the nerve to come and talk to you."

Jack raises his eyebrows at her.

Smiling nervously, she says adds, "The truth is, I've been trying to work up the nerve for a lot longer than that. "

Jack asks, "Oh?" and gestures for her to continue.

Sam says a bit hurriedly, "Pete put a down payment on a house."

Jack says, "Well, that's great!"

She adds, "It's a beautiful house."

Cocking his head, he asks, "But?"

Shifting her feet again, she says, "The-the truth is, I'm having second thoughts about the wedding."

Jack looks at her, his face puzzled as he asks, "Why?"

Sam admits, "See, the ... the thing is, the closer it gets, the more I get the feeling that ... I'm making a big, huge, mistake."

Jack looks at her for a moment, then glances towards the house again. He says, "Look, Carter, the ... I don't know what ..."

Sam interrupts him, "Look, I'm sorry to bother you with this, but, uh ... see, there's actually a very good reason that I'm bothering you with this, and if I don't tell you now, I might never ..."

She takes a deep breath, "Sir, I don't know if this entire thing, the wedding, I mean, me getting married is such a good idea. I know you said people at the SGC that have families but…I mean, I look at what happened to Daniel and…"

Jack says immediately, "He's not dead, Carter."

Distressed, Sam insists, holding one hand up, "Sir! Please, don't…just don't. I know you want to think he's not dead, but there's no reason to think...there's nothing that tells us…Sir, I just can't see how he could've gotten out of that alive."

Jack sighs but doesn't say anything to that, instead allowing Sam to continue.

She continues, "Yesterday we were talking about what was happening at Dakara and Pete calls me and he wants to buy flowers and you know, in the grand scheme of things, I don't know…it just doesn't seem right. Daniel's dead, Sir and then you tell me to go ahead and buy flowers. How am I supposed to deal with that? I'm supposed to go on with my life, plan my wedding, get married, have everything and…and I feel like I should be planning Daniels funeral instead because his best friend won't!"

At that moment, Kerry comes out of the house with a salad bowl in one hand and a dish of something in the other. "Jack, I looked everywhere - I could not find ..." She stops at seeing Sam, then glances over at Jack.

Sam closes her eyes in disbelief, then winces before turning towards Kerry. ...".

'_How could he? Acting like nothings happened when Daniel is dead…it's not right. It's not fair! I don't understand him!_' Sam thinks to herself, getting more upset by the minute.

Kerry offers her a smile, "Colonel Carter."

Sam nods to her, then turns towards Jack again.

Jack hesitates a moment before addressing Kerry awkwardly, "Ms Johnson."

Sam shakes her head in disbelief, saying, "Yeah, I didn't - I didn't.."

Jack explains, "We were just ... meeting here in my back yard on this fine day to discuss the state of affairs."

Sam nods, face showing she is not believing a word of it.

Kerry says, "Well, this is awkward!"

Slightly upset, Sam responds with, "Ya think!"

Kerry straightens a bit, saying, "Jack didn't want anyone at the SGC to know about us."

Jack goes over to her to take the bowl and dish off her.

Sam stammers slightly, trying to compose herself, "No, look, I, uh, uh, I'm sorry, this is my fault, I really, I shouldn't have come by unannounced like this."

Still smiling, Kerry asks, "Well, y'know, now that the cat's out of the bag, you're here, why don't you just stay? I'm sure there's enough charred meat on the grill for all three of us."

Jack gestures at her with a piece of the charred meat. Sam laughs, saying, "No - thank you. I, um ..." and her cell phone rings. She gets it out and looks at the Caller ID. "It's the SGC." And she answers the phone. "Colonel Carter."

Kerry smiles at Jack and walks over to him. He offers her his bottle of beer.

Sam says, "What? When? ... OK, I'm on my way." And she hangs up. Looking a bit distracted, she says, "I-I gotta go. Uh, it's my dad." And she hurries away.

**KERRY**

_**This scene occurs the morning after the barbeque scene.**_

Smiling to herself as she remembers last night, Kerry steps out of Jack's shower, towel drying her hair. Deciding on blow-drying her hair instead of letting it air dry, she searches through the bathroom drawers in search of the hair dryer.

Opening the last drawer, she's a bit surprised to find some perfume bottles and a few bottles of lipstick. Closing the drawer, she wonders at that and cracks open the door, calling out, "Jack? Where do you keep the blow dryer?"

His voice comes up from his bed, "Uh…I don't think I have one. My hairs short enough I don't need it."

Wrapping the towel about her body, she steps out of the bathroom, saying, "Oh really? I find that hard to believe…I mean, you've got makeup and women's perfume in there, I can't believe you don't have a hair dryer."

He sits up in the bed, as she moves to settle down next to him, nuzzling his neck. He holds her a moment saying, "Oh…those are Sara's…uh…"

Nibbling on his earlobe, she asks, "Sara?"

Slightly distracted, he manages to says, "Uh…you know, my ex-wife. I guess I never got around to clearing all her stuff out of the bathroom when she left."

Half hour later, Jack is in the shower and Kerry is finishing getting dressed. She looks at the photos on Jack's nightstand, wall and shelf, smiling softly as she looks at the boy, Charlie. "_Such a sweet boy…it's so sad what happened." _She thinks to herself.

Making her way to the kitchen, she pauses and takes hold of a picture prominently displayed on his kitchen counter. Tracing the outline of the woman in the picture, she thinks to herself, "_Sara…_" looking around, she sees the mementoes of Jack's former life, with his son and wife scattered everywhere around his house.

Feeling a pang in her heard, she suddenly realizes something, '_Jack moved into this house after the divorce…Sara never lived here. If those personal things in the bathroom belonged to her then…why didn't Jack just throw them out?'_ Looking around the room once again, Kerry has her answer…'_he still loves her'._

Sighing to herself, she puts some bread into the toaster, and pours two glasses of juice. "_Well Kerry, how're you going to win this one? How can you compete with a woman that isn't even here?" _She sits down, deep in thought as she waits for Jack to come out of the shower.

**LATER**

Kerry sits in her office, staring at her computer screen. She pulls up the file on Sara O'Neill, reading intently. "Hmmm…"

_Sara O'Neill, current place of residence, Washington, D.C. Former wife of Colonel Jonathan 'Jack' O'Neill.' _

"Huh…they need to update that." She murmurs to herself, continuing to read.

_Mother of Charles 'Charlie' O'Neill, deceased. Subject suffers from a mild form of depression, due to the circumstances of her child's death. As of 1997, she is in treatment for this and has been prescribed mood altering substances (see notation for drug list). This is due to her accidental encounter with an Alien life form that posed as Charlie O'Neill. _

_Results: If Colonel O'Neill is to pursue an ongoing relationship with subject, it is the recommendation of this investigator that he be reassigned outside of the SGC program. Due to Ms. O'Neill's medication and current mental instability (although light), we deem her to be too great a risk to the security of the program. Alternatives would be for Colonel O'Neill to resign his commission and work as a consultant to the SGC on a limited basis, and be restricted on a need-to-know basis._

Kerry mutters to herself, "Damned rules and regulations…"

and the rest is...history...


End file.
